EMC Polishes off Information Infrastructure

May 15, 2007: EMC have taken a hit from analysts for their acquisition strategy over the last few years, but critics were answered as Dennis Hoffman VP Information Security at EMC, delivered his opening address at EMC Inform 2007.

With a chain of acquisitions left in EMC’s wake, Hoffman admitted to his audience that they had spent ‘a lot of money’ over the lost few years “But we’re now the 6th largest software company in the world,” he said. “We passed CA last year, Symantec is up next and after that, we’ve got some serious work to do!”

Hoffman referred to EMC’s acquisition strategy as the result of their ‘maturing of information infrastructure,’ a method involving a redefined, holistic approach to information that looks further then mere data storage.

But EMC’s acquisition developed strategy for information infrastructure has been developed to assist customers with the growing digital challenge, while also ensuring EMC remains relevant in a changing industry. Hoffman reflected back on the days when the ‘Internet bubble burst,’ resulting in major turn for EMC on the stock market with a fall-out that cost staff their jobs and those who remained the need to take a long, hard look at where the industry was heading.

“We decided from there to build out,” said Hoffman. “We decided we needed to be more than just ‘where do you store you bits.”

This building out started with the purchase of Documentum in 2003. EMC continued to pull out the wallet with a number of different companies offering an array of key technologies for developing the overall ‘information infrastructure.’ While plenty of smaller vendors have been picked up along the way, notable and definitely profitable mentions include Smarts for resource management, VMware for virtualisation and RSA Security who have all helped EMC inherit a greater chunk of the information pie.

Hoffman says when it comes to security, EMC realised the need to cash in on the market as quickly as possible, an opportunity harnessed through the acquisition of three companies in the span of just six months. “Our strategy has been to get very serious, very quickly about security in the infrastructure as well as the security of people – which is about access control,” he says.

“Yesterday’s security market was about protecting the infrastructure. Today, it’s about protecting the information,” he said.

But it seems no amount of information protection is enough drive down concerns over data breaches. Hoffman pointed out the US$38 billion spent on information security in the United States in 2006. With an IDC study revealing one in five US organisations still didn’t believe their information is safe, it seems no amount of money is enough to keep IT managers sleeping at night.

Acquisition is one thing, but a holistic approach also requires cooperation with parters. “We’re building this with our partners, we’re not there yet, but we believe we’ve made a good start,” says Hoffman.

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